


areyouarealmonster's star trek discovery "character + thing" prompt fills

by areyouarealmonster



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-01-26 20:30:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12565584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyouarealmonster/pseuds/areyouarealmonster
Summary: tumblr prompt fills. warnings, if any apply, will be posted with each individual ficlet





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jo-nesboo asked: Ash + Bad days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: hinted past trauma

He hides them under the sweet smile, under the tilt of his head, the widening of his eyes. He hides them under the innocence and the brightness, and he almost fools everyone. 

 

 _Almost_.

 

Tilly notices in the sideways slant of his smile and the way his mouth moves when he tries to think about how to answer her question about how he’s feeling today. She gives him an extra hug as they pass on his way to the bridge, her fluffy hair tied back but still tickling his chin. 

 

Michael notices in the slight pause before he answers questions, as he turns around in his chair on the bridge, and she gives him a touch of a smile, and he knows she’s worried about him. She brings him candy and a brief brush of her fingertips on his shoulder, which is practically the same as the hug he’d gotten from Tilly earlier, in the amount of comfort it brings him. 

 

Ash isn’t sure Lorca notices until the captain drags him down to the holodeck later, citing “training” as a way for Ash to work out his pain, as a way to get his frustration out, his pent-up energy, as a private place so that when he finally breaks and sinks to the floor, he has someone there to hold him. 

 

And after, when he curls up in between Tilly and Michael in their room for movie night, he silently thanks all his lucky stars that he has such good friends to help him through his bad days. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishlorca.tumblr.com/post/166954862164/ash-bad-days)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jo-nesboo asked: Lorca + Happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no chapter warnings

He doesn’t think he deserves it, not really. He’s already done so much that he can never forgive himself for, so much that he can’t afford to regret but in the quiet moments he does anyway. 

 

Thankfully there are hardly any quiet moments, but there are enough that he hates the silence, hates being alone almost as much as he hates having to rely on other people to quiet the loudness of his brain. 

 

He hates  _wanting_  to rely on other people, now that he’s got nobody in that role, since he lost Landry. She was a means to an end, just as he was for her, and he misses her steadiness even if he never saw her as anything more than an officer and a distraction. 

 

But he sees the possibility of happiness in Ash Tyler, and it terrifies him because he doesn’t  _deserve_  that, doesn’t deserve for Tyler to look at him like  _that_ , with all that hope and trust and  _affection_. 

 

So he doesn’t deserve happiness, but fuck if he doesn’t want it anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishlorca.tumblr.com/post/166955360969/lorca-happiness)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous sent: ash tyler and physical touch (platonic or intimate)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning: hints about canon past sexual abuse

He’s always been tactile, always craved touch, always taken it anywhere he can find it. 

 

Not even  _she_  could take that away from him, no matter how hard she tried.

 

The first person to touch Ash after  _her,_ after  _them_ , was his captain, was Lorca. Lorca slung Ash’s arm around his shoulders and carried him–twice–and Ash could almost cry at the relief he felt at another human touching him. Touching him, supporting him,  _holding_  him, and Ash could feel his entire body screaming out in joy, even though his leg was buckling under him and his ribs were bruised and cracked, and his whole body was just one large bruise. 

 

The second person to touch Ash  _after_  was Dr. Culber. The doctor pushed lightly on Ash’s skin, soft, gentle touches, and Ash couldn’t help but lean into the touch, even as he winced in pain. 

 

The third person to touch Ash,  _after_ , was Cadet Tilly, and she hugged him about three hours after meeting him for the first time, and then profusely apologized for about thirty seconds until Ash cut her off, grinning, to tell her it was okay. Then she hugged him again. It was the first time Ash had laughed, since  _then_. 

 

The fourth, to his surprise, was Burnham. She was in the corner at the party, and Ash was tipsy, and she looked, well,  _lonely_ , so Ash asked her to dance. She said no, and Ash shrugged and leaned against the wall to keep her company instead. As the evening went on, they moved to the couch, and she fell asleep against his shoulder, as he joked with Tilly. They woke her up gently, and Tilly pulled her back to their room with a fond smile, leaving the ghost of the warmth of Burnham’s head against his shoulder. 

 

And then, to loop back around, Lorca touches him, and keeps touching him, and it keeps him grounded. Lorca touches him on the transporter pad, touches him on the holodeck, in the hallway, on the shuttle. Rests a hand on his shoulder on the bridge, grabs his arm tightly when they’re parting ways, bumps their shoulders together when they’re walking together (well, bumps his shoulder against Ash’s bicep), just  _touches him_. 

 

It sets Ash’s heart ablaze, in the best way, in all the ways, to have people around him who trust him, who  _touch_ him, who care for him. 

 

He truly is  _home_  on the  _Discovery_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishlorca.tumblr.com/post/166971392009/ash-tyler-and-physical-touch-platonic-or)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked: Gabriel Lorca and comfort food/drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings apply

It’s cliche, he knows, as he treats a cold with matzoh ball soup, that he thinks it doesn’t compare to his grandmother’s recipe. He’s programmed the damn synthesizer with everything she did, and it still doesn’t taste the same. 

 

The matzoh balls are always fluffy, always perfect, never too dense or lumpy, and maybe that’s the problem. He didn’t stand in his kitchen with his grandmother sitting in a chair watching over him, a gangly teenager, oil covering his hands as he tried to follow her instructions to the letter. 

 

He didn’t watch his mother skimming the fat off the surface of the giant, simmering pot of soup, didn’t watch her pull out the marrow bone. 

 

It’s warm and comforting and fortifying but it’s not the  _same_. He eats it anyway, every last bite, and he can hear his father’s voice saying “It’s Jewish penicillin, Gav,” can feel his mother’s warm hands on his forehead. 

 

So he eats the soup and thinks about his family, and how maybe one day, when the war is over and he’s off the ship, he’ll make matzoh ball soup with his own hands again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on tumblr [here](http://jewishlorca.tumblr.com/post/167391366764/gabriel-lorca-and-comfort-fooddrink)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coldatom4life asked: Tilly+feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter warning for potential physical child abuse

“You’re too sensitive,” her mother said. 

 

“Stop crying,” her father said. “You’re going to embarrass me.” 

 

“Why are you always so dramatic?” her mother asked. 

 

“ _Stop. Crying_ ,”her father hissed, hand tight on her shoulder. 

 

But she didn’t stop. She  _couldn’t_  stop. Her feelings well up and spill over and there’s nothing she can do about it, no matter how hard she bites her lip or digs her nails into her palms. No matter how she fiddles with her jewelry or how much her lip bleeds. 

 

Feelings are a part of her. 

 

They fill her up, from her toes to the top of her head, and the kicker, the core of it all, is that she doesn’t  _want_  to suppress them. She doesn’t want to make them go away, and who CARES if her father is embarrassed, if her mother hates every outburst of laughter, of tears, of anger? 

 

Who  _cares_ , because feelings are natural, and they’re a part of her, and  _ **screw you**_  if you want her to feel them less, if you want her to be more  _accessible_  for your thoughts of being appropriate and calm and quiet and not taking up too much space and not making too much noise and who even are you  _anyway_? 

 

Tilly loves with everything, with every ounce of her being, she feels with her friends and she hurts right along with them, and she cries and she laughs and she  _feels_  and sometimes it is too much for the situation and she gets that and she apologizes but it’s rarer than people think anyway. 

 

She lets herself feel all the feelings that come rushing through her, and she’s all the better for it. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jessicamiriamdrew asked:(ty?)lorca + avoiding assimilation

Starfleet prides itself on lack of religion. Lack of religious intent, no conversations about whose holy book is the right one. It’s  _humanistic_. 

 

It’s bullshit. 

 

Starfleet can’t erase thousands of years of religious growth, no matter how much they want to appeal to the growing anti-religion movement. No matter how much they want to pat themselves on the back for being “separate from theological arguments” and “progressive.” 

 

Religion is not inherently regressive. And it pisses Lorca off that he feels like he has to downplay his Judaism. As if his ancestors hadn’t fought to the literal death to keep their religion, hadn’t fought to stay alive because of the people who wanted them dead due to their religion and ethnicity. Judaism is both, all tied up and bound together, and Lorca isn’t about to renounce it just because some assholes behind desks don’t want to start any fights. 

 

Most ships have a policy, an unwritten rule: Celebrate if you want, but do it on your own time, in your own space. Don’t string Christmas lights up in the corridors. Don’t put a tree in the rec room. If you have to pray, do it in your own quarters or the private space that your captain may or may not provide. 

 

_Definitely_ don’t stick a hannukiah on the bridge and say the prayers in front of your crew for eight nights. 

 

Lorca gets weird looks from some of his crew, as well as a lecture from Saru on Starfleet’s principles, as if he doesn’t know them, as if he doesn’t try as hard as he can to live most of his life by them. 

 

He just points to the big window on the bridge and says, “This way, the light can shine across space and reach those who need it.” 

 

Saru shuts up after that. 

 

And it’s worth it. For the way it makes him feel, for the way it makes his Jewish crew members feel. It even gets Lieutenant Stamets out of his lab and onto the bridge, and they even stop snipping at each other in favor of saying the brachot. 

 

It’s worth it, that Tyler has a room close to the bridge where he can go to pray, because he always comes back from prayer with a lighter heart and a clearer head. 

 

And it’s even worth it that there’s a tree in the rec room, shedding pine needles anywhere, because space gets lonely and it gets dark, and even though Lorca has banned additional lights strung up in places he might go because he’d rather not spend the holiday season in more pain than usual, it’s nice to see his crew happy. 

 

People may bitch about his  _religious tendencies_ , but they bitch about everything else he does, so what’s one more? It’s worth it, to bring a little light into the darkness of space. To bring a little light to the war, to his crew, to his heart.


End file.
